Tom
does the belated obvious, hijacking Cal's expandable,
largely-expendable Choose Your Own Adventure thing from a
while back by linking
directly to a particular entry, as a new, optional startpoint. Good
move.

29.09.01

"I've then got a few seconds to either accept the call or reject it. If I reject it - if I don't like the script, or have an ethical problem with the product - it just gets rerouted to another, random terminal elsewhere in the company."

I am, once more, this week's Upsideclone, unnerving
even myself with the ghost of employment future.

Watched the film Rapa Nui last night;
various facets of Easter Island's history and culture stretched and
crowbarred into 106 minutes of dramatic cliché. Although
historically
dubious and full entirely of stock characters and
predictable plot devices, it was actually rather enjoyable.
Good to see things I'd only read about being represented
cinematically (albeit with exaggeration), and the whole ecological-disaster
thing is - even without the absurd heavy-handedness the film
gave it - resonant metaphorical stuff.

Historical dodginess and Hollywood unsubtlety aside, it stands
pretty stoutly as an "inspired by" film; an elegant threading
together of bits of the culture. And it's full of thoroughly
amazing scenery, needless to say.

28.09.01

Aha, Robert Newman's
Resistance
is Fertile video has been out for a couple of weeks,
as well, without me noticing. Very good stuff. Far more political,
with plenty of the old anguish and pacing and hair-sweeping.

Excellent news from the Bill
Bailey mailing list - a new series of
Black
Books is in the works, after all. And the man's touring
again in a month or two. And a video and DVD are imminent.

I really can't believe that Bush's advisors haven't made a
bigger effort to stop that smirking whenever he talks
about death or war thing of his.

For the benefit of anyone doing the same fruitless Web searches I was
doing a few weeks ago; the warped and scratchy "English Fool"
sample from the Carfax
track of the same name is - rather surprisingly - Tony Hancock, four
minutes fifty-seven into The Radio Ham: "Can you put it another
way? In English, fool."

"Ah, it's marvellous to be able to converse with people all over
the world. People different to yourself, with something new to
say. It broadens your outlook; increases your knowledge of things.
I bet there's not many people round here who know it's not
raining in Tokyo."

Plus ça change.

The mangled-TV-listings idea mentioned a while back has risen from
the slab as TV Misguidance.
Bizarre television schedules formed from the sliced-up
detritus of their real-world equivalents. Comedy brain Lego.

The Blog Twinning Project
blossoms alarmingly, if somewhat cliqueily. Which is half of the
point, I suppose, but to stress the other I've implemented a
random blog view - have a look at whatever that
link might take you to, and connect it to whichever of your regular
reads it reminds you of. Distant, unexpected connection is where the
Internet shines.

"An ID device would be ideal to deal with terrorism menace. Ideally, it
should be worn like a watch on each and every person in USA. [...] Anyone
without this capsule should be unable to make any transaction in USA."

Terrorist agencies will, of course, be made to promise only to use
agents who are known to the police. Clever forgers will generously
carry ID cards saying that they're clever forgers. Each card
will be magically unstealable, even from a kidnapped innocent, and will
immediately report itself if its owner mislays it. Police will be smiley
and helpful towards anyone who has mislaid their card.
Expensive technology will successfully conquer all of mankind's
slightest tendencies towards 'evil' (as defined in an imminent
government paper) by 2013. Etc.

*cough* Arsenal! - a Millionaire
contestant is accused of cheating, via the medium of coughs from
the audience. Which might have been clever - people sitting together,
conferring through subtle hand signals, coughing once after 'x' sentences
from the contestant, where 'x' is arbitrarily encoded according to
question number - but was apparently just a "one cough for 'A',
two for 'B'" nonsense. Which at least a hundred members of the viewing
public would have noticed, if no staff had. Come on.

Maybe there was just a very intelligent and bitter failed-contestant
in the audience. Me, I'm still waiting for
the radio-receiver-in-the-shoe trick. If someone's not tried it
already.

A dramatically cloudy day in the Sussex town of Battle, yesterday,
all stark stonework, sweeping hillside views and overpricedness.
Worth it alone for the shop calling itself Lingerie of Battle,
though. And the signpost to the Battle Golf Club. Battle Golf.
I'm sure there's some mileage in that.